'Rogue' biotech wheat investigated in Oregon

Saturday

Jun 8, 2013 at 11:00 AM

Genetically modified wheat, developed and tested by Monsanto in the late 1990s and early 2000s, was never formally released due to marketing concerns. This spring it was discovered in an unregulated field in Oregon after a farmer sprayed his volunteer wheat and some of the wheat plants didn't die.

By Candace Krebs

COLORADO SPRINGS — A decade ago when wheat industry leaders were discussing the possible introduction of Roundup Ready wheat, designed to withstand the popular glyphosate herbicide, they were uneasy about a nightmare scenario in which volunteer plants would become impossible to control, according to Chris Tallman, a farmer from Brandon, Colo., and one of four official biotech spokesmen designated by the National Association of Wheat Growers.

Their other big concern was whether having a biotech trait would cost the U.S. international sales.

Both of those scenarios came to life recently, at least on a small scale, after herbicide-resistant wheat was discovered growing in a farmer's field in Oregon just as hard red winter wheat harvest was beginning across the Southern Plains.

The genetically modified wheat, developed and tested by Monsanto in the late 1990s and early 2000s, was never formally released due to marketing concerns. This spring it was discovered in an unregulated field in Oregon after a farmer sprayed his volunteer wheat and some of the wheat plants didn't die. He sent them to the state university, where testing confirmed they contained Monsanto's glyphosate-resistant trait.

"Even today I don't hear a lot of farmers who are interested in the Roundup Ready trait for that particular reason. It makes the volunteer very difficult to control," Tallman said from eastern Colorado.

Still, farmers had been hoping to see a wide range of biotech traits for more appealing attributes like drought tolerance and nitrogen use efficiency come to the market within the decade, he added. Tallman wasn't sure whether the recent discovery of the "rogue" wheat would pose a setback to those efforts.

"What it does to that process, I really don't know," he said.

Tallman testified to the Colorado legislature earlier this spring in opposition to labeling of genetically modified foods. He and other wheat leaders have been working to further public acceptance of biotech even while some consumer groups continue aggressively pushing for GMO labeling.

Federal officials were seeking to calm markets by stressing that the Food and Drug Administration declared glyphosate resistant wheat safe for food or feed use back in 2004. Despite that ruling, Monsanto gave up plans to commercialize the wheat due to opposition by farmers in Canada and the U.S. fearful of the reaction by international markets. At least 50 percent of all U.S.-grown wheat is exported. In the Pacific Northwest, that percentage is closer to 90 percent, much of it to Asian countries sensitive about genetic modification.

The recent finding of the unauthorized trait was in soft white spring wheat. According to federal officials, the government had granted more than 100 field tests on the variety in multiple states from 1998 through 2005.

Officials are investigating, and Tallman said he did not know how long the inquiry might take.

At press time, at least one farmer, Ernest Barnes of Elkhart, Kan., was reportedly suing Monsanto for damages over the incident.

Mark Hodges, the director of Plains Grains Inc., an Oklahoma-based wheat-testing program covering the High Plains, was busy receiving wheat samples from Texas and Southern Oklahoma as harvest got under way.

He said his lab in Stillwater, Okla., was capable of testing for the presence of genetically modified material.

"I don't anticipate that being a reality," he said. "We haven't been asked to do any of that at the present time."

He cautioned that it was too early to make assumptions about what had happened in the Oregon incident or what it might mean for the industry long term.

"We need to let them do their investigation without ruling anything out — or ruling anything in," he said.